Peter Bourjos looked around the Angels’ locker room after he was promoted to the major leagues last August and saw a lot of familiar faces – but not a lot of his contemporaries.

The 24-year-old doesn’t have that problem this year.

“Last year, I knew a lot of the guys but it wasn’t like I came up with them,” Bourjos said. “I know I wasn’t the odd man out (being so much younger than most of his teammates) – but it kind of felt like I was. I didn’t have the same relationship I have with guys like Hank (Conger) and (Mark) Trumbo that I came up through the minors with.

“You spend so much time together – six months a year – it’s kind of like family. It helps a lot having them here this year.”

Bourjos was the advance scout for a youth movement that has made the 2011 Angels the youngest team Mike Scioscia has taken into a season during his 12 as Angels manager.

With an average age of 28 years, 268 days on Opening Day (roster moves since have tugged at those numbers – in both directions), the Angels opened the season as the sixth-youngest team in the majors. The Angels’ roster had not been this young since the end of the 2002 regular season when a number of September callups brought the average way down.

“We don’t write their ages next to their names on the lineup card,” Scioscia joked when asked about having such a young team.

If he did look at the numbers, he might have noticed that six of his players were lining up for their first Opening Day as major leaguers. Since the opener, there have been rookies at first base (Trumbo) and occasionally catcher (Conger) not to mention closer (after Scioscia’s quick trigger moved Jordan Walden in and veteran Fernando Rodney out). There’s a near-rookie in center field every day (Bourjos), a young tilt to the bench and young arms sprinkled in the bullpen.

Pressed for starting pitching, the Angels got even younger Monday when they promoted 21-year-old Tyler Chatwood from Triple-A to make his major-league debut. Chatwood (who threw to the 23-year-old Conger at catcher) became the second-youngest player in the majors when he was promoted. (Chatwood is about four months older than Cubs shortstop Starlin Castro.)

“Age is relative. It’s really about production,” Scioscia said. “You’re going to get young players that are extremely talented outplay veterans even with the mistakes or glitches that might come up. … Francisco Rodriguez came up at age 20 (in September 2002). His talent outplayed anything that was going to be on that field.

“I just think it’s going to come and it’s going to go. You’re going to have some teams that are going to have a lot of young veterans that are going to play at a high level and be a good team. I think we have a nice blend. There’s a core on this team of veterans that are in their prime that we feel are going to be the main force for us moving forward. There’s a peripheral blend of young kids that are very talented – and there’s going to be some growing pains with them. Still, we feel their talent can outplay some of the other guys that maybe they’re competing with right now.”

It is indeed a blend – of good and bad – having so many young players in key roles.

“The good is you see a lot of potential in these young guys,” Angels veteran Torii Hunter said. “The bad is they’re unpredictable. You don’t know what you’re going to get some times.

“But it’s cool having all these young guys here. I love the blend.”

Scioscia downplayed the downside of youth. The Angels so thoroughly scout and evaluate their young players, he said, that the mystery is minimized.

“I think you’re careful about putting a guy in a situation he’s not prepared for,” Scioscia said. “We talk about this to the point of exhaustion – about whether a guy’s ready, what he’s ready for, what his role might be. Is he ready to come up here and have the challenge of playing every day? Or is he a guy you might have to kind of match up a little more to get his feet wet, understanding the downside of giving a guy too much too soon?”

Putting on the GM’s hat he hopes to wear some day, Hunter said he would consider youth an important ingredient in team-building – particularly on the West Coast where the more taxing travel schedule can challenge older players.

“In a way, you want to stay young – you need those fresh legs,” the 35-year-old Hunter said.

Scioscia admits he has “started to look at” the effects of West Coast travel more closely after it was brought up so often last season (when the Angels traveled a major-league high 50,510 miles). But he still dismisses it as a major hurdle for West Coast teams to overcome.

“I think it’s more of a luxury for an East Coast team (to have shorter flights) than it is detrimental to a West Coast team,” Scioscia said.

There is a financial need to stay young as well. In baseball, younger is cheaper (with salary escalators like arbitration and free agency parceled out after service time is gained).

Even with all the youth on their roster to start this season, the Angels are carrying a franchise record payroll of around $140 million. Savings in one area (the Angels will spend about $15 million on seven infielders including the disabled Kendrys Morales) has been splurged in another ($46 million on five outfielders).

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